Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Some Lesser Swipes

As I mentioned the other day, I have been working my way through the mid-1950s Superboy issues looking for more swipes by Weisinger and company. I came across two more, although these were not quite as blatant. First:

Despite the rather obvious swipe of the cover concept, the stories themselves have only a superficial similarity. In the Superboy story, Clark was unaware that his teacher had instructed the class to wear Superboy costumes for Superboy day in Smallville, because he had been absent from the classroom when the order was made. In the Supergirl story, a TV producer had given everybody at Stanhope copies of her uniform (including Linda), but hers was damaged when she used it on a mission in her other identity. The latter story turns out to be an effort by the TV guy to expose Supergirl's secret identity. In the former, Clark sweats it out that the reason he was chosen to be dressed in plainclothes was that someone had guessed his secret, but it turns out instead that hidden inside his jacket was a letter signed by everybody in town thanking Superboy.

It's comparable to these two stories with identical titles:

Same concept, different execution. In the first story (from Superboy #50) a gang of crooks have come to Smallville to hide out with their loot, although one of the underlings is worried about the rumors that a young lad has super powers has recently been making things tough for the local criminals. The boss, as shown, finds the concept of a Superboy to be ridiculous, although he soon learns otherwise. In the later story, Superboy goes to a nearby old West town where the local hoods haven't heard of him.